Josée Sigouin is French Canadian and lives in Toronto/Tkaronto with her Chinese Canadian husband and their two sons. Watching South Korean films and television series in the mid-2000s launched Josée on a quest to understand the fascinating culture in ever greater depth. She has learned the rudiments of the Korean language, visited the Land of the Morning Calm multiple times, and read extensively about its past and present. She also turned her attention to creative writing, taught by Dennis Bock and Kim Echlin at the University of Toronto’s School of Continuing Studies, and mentored by Omar El Akkad at a writing residency in Bangladesh. An early excerpt from Our Fifth Season was shortlisted for the 2011 Random House of Canada Student Award. In addition to travelling, Josée enjoys cycling, gardening, and welcoming birds to her tiny garden. Our Fifth Season is Josée’s first novel.
Month: May 2026
Leslie Bradford Scott
This week we welcome Leslie Bradford-Scott to Word on the Hills. Leslie is the author
of the upcoming memoir The Liar's Playbook (Simon & Schuster,
2026), an Indigo Most Anticipated pick for 2026. Her path to publication
was anything but conventional — she sold the book on proposal in three
weeks, without an agent, after more than two decades of writing
screenplays, essays, and building a multi-million-dollar personal care
brand, Walton Wood Farm, from her laundry room. She is currently at work
on her first novel. Leslie lives in Northumberland County.
Patricia Calder
Welcome to Patricia Calder! Pat Calder started writing as a teenager. Inspired by an uncle who reported for the CBC, she secretly wrote stories about her life in the 50s and 60s. As a young adult she travelled around Europe as far as Moscow. Inspired by Russian writers she studied in university, she explored communism. The secret of the night her 3-year-old brother died came out at a family event. When she began writing as a retiree, these early memories reappeared in her writing: nature, equality, and loss. In a parallel life, she was developing her eye as a photographer. Spirit of the Hills has been a major influence and support for Pat as a writer and as a photographer, with its arts shows and writing critique groups.
Ted Staunton
This week we welcome Ted Staunton. Ted Staunton wrote his first story long ago, as a class assignment at university. He barely handed it in on time, but he’s glad he did: it became the picture book Puddleman. Now the author of something like fifty books, he writes for all ages, and he’s getting better. His YA novel Who I’m Not won the 2014 CCBC John Spray Mystery Award. Ted’s work has also been nominated for Silver Birch, Red Maple, Hackmatack, Arthur Ellis, BC Stellar, and City of Toronto awards, among others. His work has also been published internationally, in a variety of languages. Ted speaks, performs, and leads workshops in schools, libraries and festivals across Canada. As well, he teaches the Writing Children’s Fiction courses at George Brown College.
Word on the Hills Radio Program 